


[Light/Darkness]

by Sophisticated_Adult



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Shattered Glass
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, dunking on zeta for fun and profit, general SG warning but it's pretty mild in this fic tbh, hot rod @ optimus: have you thought about being a good person, no-one likes that guy, optimus: i don't understand the question
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-14 01:07:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29163168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sophisticated_Adult/pseuds/Sophisticated_Adult
Summary: Optimus Prime comes to Nyon with the express purpose of killing his own sparkmate to put an end to this farce.That...doesn't quite happen.
Relationships: Hot Rod/Optimus Prime
Comments: 13
Kudos: 49





	[Light/Darkness]

**Author's Note:**

> kind of a choppy first draft but sometimes you gotta post the thing or you'll sit on it for three months for no reason and then post it anyway.

If nothing else, at least Nyon was a city Optimus could respect.

If his spark had to be shackled to another, at least it was someone – assuming it wasn't one of the factory owners or overseers, petty tyrants in their own right – who knew the day in, day out of hard manual labour that Optimus had been a part of before he'd been selected at random to provide a controllable puppet to carry the Matrix.

_That_ had been several million years ago. And a few after that – once he'd crushed the worthless Senate and firmly taken Cybertron and the Autobots as his – the unthinkable had happened.

His spark had flared to life one day unexpectedly, a near agonising explosion outwards of something _other_. Ratchet dropped his mad-doctor facade to soberly inform him that there was only one thing it could be: a newly created spark bond, unfulfilled, reaching out to the other mech that held the other half of it.

In others words, his sparkmate, long-absent, long-unneeded, had just been created.

He didn't bother to threaten the medic – they both knew Ratchet was both loyal and sensible enough to keep that information to himself. Optimus endured the next few days learning to filter out emotions that were not his own, blocking off each channel as it opened. It was not unlike when he'd first bonded with the Matrix, and he'd learned the tricks needed to ignore that well enough, in time.

It was not official propaganda, but the general encouraged belief was that as the Supreme Prime had no sparkmate, Autobots were to adhere to his standard. Sparkmates were double-edged; they could encourage a mech to fight beyond their means a thousand times over, but at the same time, that fervent faith was put somewhere _other_ than Optimus himself. For an Autobot, that was unacceptable. Sparkmates were a fact of life, but generally, people kept quiet about them. Especially in his presence.

Life moved on. Once it was established this annoying blip in his spark was not one of his Autobots, nor did it seem to be anyone Optimus met on a regular basis, he set to ignoring it, blocking each curious outreach from the other mech until the faint brushes of _otherness_ stopped entirely.

Good. It was a distraction, unwanted and unasked for.

Years passed. Optimus could go decades forgetting about the aberrance in his spark completely, save the occasional checkup from Ratchet. His sparkmate had thoroughly gotten the message that _he was not welcome._

Or so it had seemed.

Outbursts of raw emotion would flash across Optimus' system seemingly at random, there and gone too quickly to react in time to block them. His sparkmate would not reach out afterwards to explain. It was anger, mostly. This was a young mech, after all. Yet to learn to control such things.

His optic twitched, the only outward sign of the sudden _resentment_ that was not his own flooding his system. Nevertheless, the meeting was with some of the highest-ranking Autobots, those who'd known him longest and knew what few tells he had. Alerted to danger, Prowl swiftly concluded business, the other officers filing out as quickly and silently as they could. No-one wanted to attract attention.

Only Ironhide was waiting at the door as his Prime remained seated.

“Been a bad season for cyber-wasps,” he commented as Optimus finally, heavily rose. “You got any that need stampin' out, I'm your mech.”

“Perhaps.” Optimus sighed. “The nest may need inspecting.”

His old friend could rest easy, however. This was a long-overdue task for Optimus himself. 

\---

For all that he'd pretended the unfulfilled bond didn't exist, over the years it still reached out of its own accord before Optimus could brutally clamp down on it. 

And perhaps he hadn't ignored it entirely as much as he would have liked to, because – he had a vague idea, at least, of what events in what cities matched up to the flares of emotion that weren't his own.

Zeta happened to request a curfew in Nyon, apparently having a hard time with a resistance group that Optimus was disinclined to waste his own resources and mechs on. Let the city's overseer prove he was worthy of the position on his own. 

Optimus was ninety percent sure. Part-way through Zeta's broadcast there was the now-familiar, shimmering flare of disgust and anger.

One hundred.

Optimus grimaced. On top of this, he had to deal with Zeta's snivelling presence. He waited for the broadcast to finish, then commed one of his least favourite underlings for a personal tour.

\---

Nyon was at the same time alien and familiar. 

He'd never personally set foot in the city, an industrial hub that traded the cold wind from the Rust Sea for an omnipresent, suffocating heat. It had a fierce independent streak that he respected more than he did Zeta's reports on minor woes and failings to keep the workers in line. 

No-one lingered on the smoggy streets, each and every mech being someone with somewhere to be. The to-and-fro hurrying, couriers and deliverymechs dodging around hulking labourers, it all so strongly reminded him of the docks he'd once worked on, as faceless and indistinguishable from the next mech. It gave him a certain nostalgia, watching their movements as Zeta aimed him towards whatever factories and forges would give the best impression. Optimus didn't pay attention to his boasts of records hit and costs cut, instead turning inwards.

Close. His spark was practically thrumming with excitement, one he couldn't even blame on the other, this time, unless you counted this whole sorry situation in the first place.

Turning abruptly, he marched out of the factory, only vaguely aware of Zeta's yelp and hurried footfalls. His path lead him a few streets over, the sky darkening as the buildings closed in above. He reached what must be one of the forges, a blistering heat emerging from the entrance, the street itself warm beneath his feet.

“Er, sir-” Zeta ventured, but made no attempt to stop him as Optimus swept inside. Internal warnings started to ping in his HUD as the heat went from sweltering to being its own wall of pressure, but still there was noise and motion as molten metal was guided and cast.

“Who's in charge here!” Zeta demanded, grabbing a mini who'd been hurrying past them, sweeping him right off his feet and bringing him up to glare directly into his optics.

Whatever the answer, Optimus ignored it, optics roving around the busy scene, restlessly seeking out - 

“Can I help you gentlemechs?” The little mech returned with one only a head taller, barely coming up to Optimus' knees. But he had a sense of calm, of control, amidst the organised chaos that was all too familiar to those who knew it. A foreman, one who knew what he was doing.

“We're just – looking,” Zeta fumbled, caught out. Optimus' focus had narrowed on to one mech, towards the back, where the metal was still in the process of being melted down.

“What's that one doing?” Optimus asked, intently studying the grimy mech, covered in ash and soot like the other workers. Although bigger than the foreman, he was still small, having to lean up in order to reach into one of the vats with a kind of ladle, which he used to scoop out glowing, solid-looking chunks from the molten metal. These were tossed onto a pile, where they cooled quickly. 

“Oh, that's one of the skimmers, sir,” the foreman said, eager to provide an answer. “Takes out the slag – er, impurities in the metal, so's it don't get mixed in when it gets cast.”

“Impurities,” Optimus murmured. His sparkmate was a fast worker, and – to the optics of one unacquainted with his line of work – skilled at it, easily braving the heat to reach into the crucible with practised movements.

The foreman shrugged. “Aye. Gets rid o' the garbage you don't want in the first place, like, dirt an' such, since we're dealin' with scrap. And it separates diff'rent kinds o' metal from each other, so's we know what we're workin' with.” The little mech was doing a much better job of keeping under pressure than Zeta ever did in his presence, seeming unworried at the Supreme Prime's unexpected appearance in his little foundry.

“How long is his shift for?” Optimus asked. Both Zeta and the foreman's EM fields snapped with confusion and surprise, but the little mech rallied first: 

“A few more cycles yet – ” catching the sudden cooling of the area even in this all-consuming heat, he quickly added: “Or, well, whenever you want, sir.”

“Get him cleaned up,” Optimus ordered, turning to Zeta. “I need to see him in a private room.”

\---

Optimus sat primly in a back office that had been hastily located and cleaned out, still dusty from disuse and merely mildly warm. He approved reports from Prowl and requisition requests from Ultra Magnus, frowned at a news headline about the latest Decepticon activity in Tarn, a supposedly secret rally all but held out in the open.

And Zeta thought _he_ had problems?

His spark noticed the approach before he did, and he shut off and subspaced the datapad. A second later the door opened, revealing the mech Optimus had singled out as his sparkmate.

If nothing else, he cleaned up nicely, for all that there were still patches that had been missed, including a black smudge on his cheek that had only been half-swiped away. Despite this, Optimus took a moment to appreciate the figure – it was meant for him, after all, and the worn and dulled paint couldn't hide the lean, curved frame.

“Huh.” His sparkmate looked him up and down once, then spoke without prompting, dropping down into an office seat that creaked and groaned in protest despite his light stature. “Figures. Guess it makes sense you're an Autobot.”

“Why is that?” Optimus raised an optical ridge. His sparkmate's impressive pair of sweeping yellow spoilers were slumped down, and his visor was raised to reveal a bright pair of blue optics. He shifted back in the chair before answering:

“Well, I – thought you hated me. You blocked me out on day one, fought me at every turn. Folks said Autobots get weird about sparkmates, so I guessed you bought into their slag.” His sparkmate wrapped his arms around himself but still met Optimus' optics, some mix of pity and resentment and curiosity bubbling underneath. “I mean, why are you even here? Why now?”

That was when Optimus realised: there was an utter lack of reaction, of recognition.

His sparkmate had no idea he was speaking to the Supreme Prime.

“This has gone on long enough.” Optimus stood, hands flexing, but - 

He'd kept thinking about what the foreman had said: _removing impurities._

He'd taken in Sunstreaker and Sideswipe at an older age than this, when they were half-feral and operating almost entirely on combat programming. He'd personally shaped Prowl and Jazz into the mechs they were today. 

It seemed such a waste, now, to kill the mech standing fearlessly before him.

There was no shame in adjusting your stance once new information came to light.

“Come with me to Iacon.” The words were out of his mouth before he even thought them, but, yes, this was right. The little mech stepped back, confusion wrinkling on his faceplate.

“Huh? That's – that's for Autobots an' their stooges. I'm no 'bot,” he tapped his flame-painted chest proudly. “This whole faction business is dumb. We're all just mechs, in the end.”

“Fascinating.” Optimus indulged him, opening the door for them both. “Perhaps we can discuss this further in the transport.”

“Hey, I didn't say yes!” His mate protested but still followed him out, turning sideways though the door to stop his expansive spoiler clipping on it. “Can I at least get your name?”

“If I have yours first.”

“Sure.” His mate walked side-by-side, head held proudly. “Name's Hot Rod.”

“Hm.” Optimus made a noncommital noise. It suited him, he supposed.

His mate would know his identity soon enough. For now, Optimus was curious as to the sorts of things he would say before he knew exactly who he was saying it to.

All in all, things could have turned out worse.

**Author's Note:**

> (It's me, I'm the jerk chickening out on my own prompt and making an attempt at redeeming SG!OP through sheer force of Hot Rod Is A Good Boy instead)
> 
> Rest of this would basically be:  
>  **Optimus:** ah yes, I will shape this mech to my liking  
>  **Hot Rod:** *reverse Uno trap card*
> 
> hmu @ of-nyon.tumblr.com if you ever want to check if Roddy is the best one (he is)


End file.
